1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a content distributing server and a content distributing method which distribute musical composition contents to terminal devices such as cellular mobile phones, as well as a content distributing program executed by a computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there have been known servers which distribute to terminal devices contents (multimedia data) comprised of a wide variety of media data such as images, sound, and character strings, which can be reproduced and output by sounding, visual display, and so forth. In general, multimedia data is provided solely for viewing by users of terminal devices, and hence the users cannot, for example, edit the multimedia data. To obviate this, there has been developed a technique which provides multimedia data as a kind of template so that users can edit multimedia data to some extent.
For example, a server disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-007407 distributes to terminal devices such as cellular mobile phones a multimedia template file in which multimedia data is associated with editing operation setting data that prescribes the way of editing the multimedia data. An individual user operates a terminal device to carry out editing in which the template file can be modified within the range permitted by the editing operation setting data. For example, the user can select an image to be reproduced in predetermined timing from among a plurality of images and replace media data set to be reproduced in predetermined timing with other media data.
However, with the server disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-007407, users of terminal devices can select texts and images of templates and replace them by other texts and images but cannot dynamically modify the templates themselves. Thus, the distributing service provided by this server is little more than the so-called greeting service. Moreover, musical composition data distributed to users of terminal devices is generally restricted from being redistributed and modified, so that musical compositions adopted in the greeting service are limited and users of terminal devices cannot always acquire a template including a desired musical composition.
Thus, there is a problem that it is practically difficult for users to appropriately reproduce a desired moving video picture or the like in parallel with and in conformity with reproduction of a desired musical composition. For example, there may be cases where if a musical composition or a moving video picture or the like of a template is modified, a reproduction time length of the musical composition does not coincide with that of the moving video picture or the like. Also, there may be cases where a musical composition and a moving video picture or the like do not match in contents for example when the tune of the musical composition is upbeat whereas the tone color of the moving video picture or the like is dark or negative.
As described above, the conventional content distributing servers have the problem that it is difficult for users of terminal devices to display a desired moving video picture or the like in conformity with reproduction of a desired musical composition.